Advisers Underestimate High-Net-Worth Women’s Wealth Priorities, per BlackRock

Women historically have been viewed as receiving much of their wealth through inheritance or wealth transfers, but they are increasingly building and controlling wealth on their own.

According to BlackRock Inc.’s new report, “Future of Wealth: Women, Money and the Growing Opportunity for Advisors,” surveyed affluent and high-net-worth women cited growing wealth (46%), preserving wealth (43%) and creating retirement income (32%) as their three most important financial priorities.

Surveyed advisers, of which 84% were male, thought women’s top financial priorities were preserving wealth (38%), followed by supporting family members (34%) and preparing for life transitions (30%). Retirement income ranked fourth (29%), while growing wealth ranked eighth (21%).

According to projections from McKinsey & Co.’s 2024 data sourced in BlackRock’s report, women are expected to control $34 trillion in U.S. investable assets by 2030.

A separate study by AllianceBernstein, Wealth Beyond Measure 2026, found that 28.6% of responding ultra-high-net-worth women were concerned about preserving wealth, compared with just 4% of responding ultra-high-net-worth men. This highlights that, as in BlackRock’s report, preserving wealth is a significant financial concern for women, across research groups.

When asked about financial confidence, though, the findings flipped. Among responding men, 80% were confident they were preserving their wealth, compared with 57.1% of responding women.

AllianceBernstein’s data came from a survey of 107 participants with an average net worth of $200 million, 75% of whom were male and 25% of whom were female.

Building Wealth, Using Wealth

Advisers surveyed by BlackRock also underestimated how women built their wealth. Asked what contributes most to women’s wealth, 63% of responding advisers believed it came passively from inheritance or gifts, and 62% thought the wealth came through marriage or partnership. Just 49% thought the wealth was from women’s own salaries or career earnings.

When affluent and high-net-worth women were asked, 79% said their salary or career earnings contributed most to their wealth, and a minority credited their marriage or partnership (31%) and inheritances and gifts (27%).

While most surveyed advisers (69%) assumed that women’s wealth was used mostly for family financial support, only 40% of surveyed women said the same. Most women (60%) said they found their wealth most useful for long-term investing, compared with 55% of advisers who believed that was a valued path.

Focusing on Retirement

As high-earning women are becomingly increasingly comfortable managing their wealth, their financial advice expectations are becoming more sophisticated.

According to BlackRock, surveyed women expect personalization across both their financial decisions and the adviser experience itself. Women said personalization mattered most for their investment strategy (79%) and retirement planning (79%), followed by their tax management (76%) and risk management (69%).

Women surveyed who were closer to retirement placed greater emphasis on tax efficiency, with 64% of women older than 65 saying paying taxes was a top five financial priority, compared with 58% of women aged 55 through 64 and 38% of women younger than 55.

However, even with advisers misunderstanding many of women’s financial priorities, the same percentage of surveyed advisers and women—36%—agreed that retirement spending was a top financial challenge.

BlackRock’s study was based on Escalent’s survey of 1,067 affluent and high-net-worth women investors and 409 financial advisers, fielded from July 29 through August 23.